4 ms·

What if we declared Facebook to be a monopoly and broke it up like we did Ma Bell in the 70s? I dunno. Feels like it's too big, too ubiquitous, and is too muc

What if we declared Facebook to be a monopoly and broke it up like we did Ma Bell in the 70s? I dunno. Feels like it's too big, too ubiquitous, and is too much oriented towards encouraging behaviors that are much better for their pockets than for anyone using it. Hell, look at this story: Facebook already has (according to a quick google search, [citation needed]) about 58% of the US' entire adult population, or 3/4 of all adult Americans who use the Internet. (which is about 81%). Their user growth rate is going flat, because they're running out of people willing and able to be online. But they need to keep acquiring new users no matter what, so now they're turning their eyes to the people who they are legally barred from giving accounts to. Gotta find more eyeballs to show ads to.

0942v8653 9y ago
Social media is one of those things which by nature is difficult to break up. I'd say it's as hard to really fix as any natural monopoly. Facebook is not near as bad as Google is in terms of quiet influence, at least among the younger generation.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Social media is one of those things which by nature is difficult to break up. I'd say it's as hard to really fix as any natural monopoly. No. Right now, social networking right is sort of like email in the AOL/Compuserv days. Email is a kind of social network, but they key difference between it and service like Facebook is that it's implemented using open standards. There's no reason open standards for a "Facebook feed" could be designed and mandated during a break-up.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
Better to create a better desirable alternative instead of breaking up something useful to most people.
tempodox 9y ago
Corporations have always been trying to rule the world by selling hot air and "caveat emptor" has been a thing since markets exist. The Internet just gives you access to all the dumb people in the world at once. How will you control that from one country?
emiliobumachar 9y ago
An interesting idea, which raises a lot of questions: Along which lines could it be broken up? Datacenters? Subsets of the social graph? Would you liked to be grouped with your family, your school or your church? It seems very plausible that one of them would grow and engulf everyone, while the others woulg go the way of MySpace. What then?
- toasterlovin 9y ago
  There is really only one change that needs to be made: undo the Instagram acquisition.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > Along which lines could it be broken up? Datacenters? Subsets of the social graph? Would you liked to be grouped with your family, your school or your church? > It seems very plausible that one of them would grow and engulf everyone, while the others woul[d] go the way of MySpace. What then? I've thought about this, and I think the best way to break up Facebook is by datacenter, staff, AND social graph. However, each successor company needs to be required to inter-operate with the others and everyone else through some open standard. That would blunt the network effect and perhaps allow a decentralized, competitive market to stabilize.
- egypturnash 9y ago
  My answer to most of your questions (which are good ones!) is "go look at the activitypub/ostatus world, especially Mastodon". Federation between smaller, user-supported social sites creates a very different world than ones built to put eyeballs in front of ads. I may be biased by having pretty much ditched Twitter for a Mastodon instance that I run for myself, a few friends, and whoever else thinks it would be cool to be @username@dragon.style and have a Twitter-like thing that lets them emit 7k tweets if they want to.

0942v8653 9y ago

Social media is one of those things which by nature is difficult to break up. I'd say it's as hard to really fix as any natural monopoly. Facebook is not near as bad as Google is in terms of quiet influence, at least among the younger generation.

Chaebixi 9y ago
> Social media is one of those things which by nature is difficult to break up. I'd say it's as hard to really fix as any natural monopoly. No. Right now, social networking right is sort of like email in the AOL/Compuserv days. Email is a kind of social network, but they key difference between it and service like Facebook is that it's implemented using open standards. There's no reason open standards for a "Facebook feed" could be designed and mandated during a break-up.

em3rgent0rdr 9y ago

Better to create a better desirable alternative instead of breaking up something useful to most people.

tempodox 9y ago

Corporations have always been trying to rule the world by selling hot air and "caveat emptor" has been a thing since markets exist. The Internet just gives you access to all the dumb people in the world at once. How will you control that from one country?

emiliobumachar 9y ago

An interesting idea, which raises a lot of questions: Along which lines could it be broken up? Datacenters? Subsets of the social graph? Would you liked to be grouped with your family, your school or your church? It seems very plausible that one of them would grow and engulf everyone, while the others woulg go the way of MySpace. What then?

toasterlovin 9y ago
There is really only one change that needs to be made: undo the Instagram acquisition.
Chaebixi 9y ago
> Along which lines could it be broken up? Datacenters? Subsets of the social graph? Would you liked to be grouped with your family, your school or your church? > It seems very plausible that one of them would grow and engulf everyone, while the others woul[d] go the way of MySpace. What then? I've thought about this, and I think the best way to break up Facebook is by datacenter, staff, AND social graph. However, each successor company needs to be required to inter-operate with the others and everyone else through some open standard. That would blunt the network effect and perhaps allow a decentralized, competitive market to stabilize.
egypturnash 9y ago
My answer to most of your questions (which are good ones!) is "go look at the activitypub/ostatus world, especially Mastodon". Federation between smaller, user-supported social sites creates a very different world than ones built to put eyeballs in front of ads. I may be biased by having pretty much ditched Twitter for a Mastodon instance that I run for myself, a few friends, and whoever else thinks it would be cool to be @username@dragon.style and have a Twitter-like thing that lets them emit 7k tweets if they want to.